Proactive Versus Do Nothing!

Recent planning conferences, plus some of our previous posts, have highlighted the concerns that residents have with deep excavation for underground car parks and the irreversible problems that these constructions can cause. In a municipality that this prone to flooding, that has large areas of water table, and where basements are abutting neighbours’ fence lines, the prospect of real long term damage is high.

Council’s position has been: first grant a permit and then worry about such things as flooding, discharging polluted waters into the drainage system and lowering of the water table so that surrounding areas are susceptible to earth movement and instability. In contrast, the latest agenda items for Kingston contain a policy called “BASEMENTS AND DEEP BUILDING CONSTRUCTION POLICY”. If the policy is ratified, then Kingston will demand before any permit is granted the following:

Prior to application for a building permit, developers must conduct a site investigation to assess the local hydrology. The results of the site investigation must be presented to council in the form of a Groundwater Assessment Report Site limitations with respect to groundwater that have been identified in the initial design phase should be considered prior to the commencement of construction. Any excavation within 1.00 metre of the groundwater table will require a documented management plan to be submitted as part of or in conjunction with a Construction Management Plan. All necessary permits for the drainage of or de-watering of the site shall be in-place prior to construction commencing

Double depth excavations for two levels of basement car parking is now becoming more frequent in Glen Eira. Yet all council has done is include some ‘conditions’ in the planning permit about water discharge, etc. No real consideration has been given to what could happen to the groundwater levels; what could happen as a result of earth anchors; what could happen as a result of the cumulative impacts of such developments. Granting a permit and then trying to fix the problem is far too late as has been evidenced by several disasters in Carnegie.

If development is going to continue at the rate it is and with the proliferation of underground parking that reaches several levels, then greater surveillance, and far more restrictions on what can be done where is necessary. Sitting back and doing nothing is not the answer.

Murrumbeena has stepped out from the shadows of its higher-priced neighbours to take centre stage as Melbourne’s price pacesetter.

Over the past year the median house price in the suburb has surged by 27.5 per cent to $954,000, new data from Domain Group shows.

It has also outperformed some of Melbourne’s top blue-chip locales including Toorak and Canterbury, which recorded no growth during the period.
Source: Domain Group.

Woodards Carnegie director Ruth Roberts said price growth in suburbs such as Carnegie, Glen Huntly and Ormond could be pushing buyers across the border to Murrumbeena, which “has always been the poor cousin”.

She said a three-bedroom house at 37 Beauville Avenue, Murrumbeena, she appraised for $750,000 to $800,000 about a year ago was expected to fetch between $850,000 and $900,000 on Saturday.

“Carnegie is becoming quite populated with apartments, where as in Murrumbeena there is less likelihood that you’re going to have an apartment block springing up next door, and so allotments are still quite generous,” she said.

“Houses are now selling for up to $2 million in Murrumbeena.”

Ms Roberts said Murrumbeena Primary School and easy access to Chadstone have also proved to be major drawcards for buyers.

Domain Group’s senior economist Andrew Wilson said the inner south had been a growth region over the past year, and Murrumbeena is a more affordable option to Malvern East, Bentleigh East and Caulfield.

House prices in South Melbourne, South Yarra and Armadale in the inner city have also soared more than 20 per cent over the year, as have Hawthorn East and Warrandyte in the inner east.

Auctioneer Richard Earle of Jellis Craig Hawthorn said price growth was driven by old homes being knocked down in Hawthorn East to make way for new buildings.

“A lot of the growth that we’re seeing is that well-positioned blocks of land will now make $2 million or more pretty consistently, meaning the end product will command $3 million to $5 million,” he said.

“The wealthy seem to be moving in and securing their position by buying more land if it becomes available immediately adjoining them.”

He said the suburb, well known for its tree-lined streets, was also popular for its close proximity to sought-after private schools and public transport.

The cheapest suburb in Melbourne’s top 10 performers is Braybrook in the west, where the median has jumped by 21.7 per cent to $486,750.

Barry Plant Sunshine director Jason Allen said many developers had set their sights on the suburb because it was affordable compared to other suburbs a similar distance from the CBD.

“A lot of the housing in Braybrook is ex-housing commission homes – which are your weatherboard and concrete homes – and a lot of them are set on land sizes of 600-square-metre-plus, and it allows for a lot of redevelopment,” he said.

“The resale value of townhouses and new homes in that area are quite high, so that’s a big thing for a lot of buyers.”

In the inner south, Ormond and Oakleigh East also emerged as top performers, while Ashburton came out on top in the outer east.

Throughout the regions, the inner east was the top performer for houses, growing 13.4 per cent over the period, followed by the north east with 13.3 per cent and the inner city and outer east with 12.7 per cent.

The inner south also grew by 11.8 per cent, while the north climbed 6.8 per cent and the south east and west increased 6.3 per cent and 6.1 per cent respectively.

Stackers are a joke too. No one uses them and they end up parking in the street so things are worse. Some of the underground car parks you’d swear they were trying to dig to China that’s how deep they go and then there’s the incline to get into them. Useless and dangerous.

I agree that car stackers encourage people to park in the streets but so do the basement carparks.

I’m in Carnegie and in the evenings people are requesting me to come to them rather than them coming to me because there is nowhere to park. There’s no parking not only because the people in the units have more than 1 car but also because of the difficultly of getting out of the basement carpark in the mornings. They have to queue to get on the exit ramp and also wait for a gap to get onto the street. It’s much easier to park on the street..

I’ve raised this issue with Council and they won’t put restricted parking on both sides of the street. All they do is shrug.

Just as hydrology has been ignored by council and developers, so has engineering integrity. Some developers are attempting to squeeze in so many units that they are obliged to build their basement carpark right to the property boundary with thin shells for concrete walls. They then demand the right to insert stays and other reinforcing structures beyond their property boundary into neighbouring ground, compromising the development potential of the neighbours. This is a violation of Guidelines for Higher Density Residential Development, although Ron Torres has decided only some elements of the Guidelines are “key”.

I’d like to know what the legal position is if a neighbour excavates their own property and severs all reinforcing bolts and cables in the process. Council has an ethical obligation and an opportunity to avoid this situation from the outset as part of assessing whether to grant a Permit. Seek information from the applicant about whether the development can remain wholly confined within the property boundary. Don’t grant a Permit if an applicant can’t or won’t remain within the confines of their property, unless they have secured written Agreement from their neighbours.

If council had been really concerned about this issue, then they would have done what Bayside from memory has done and inserted into their schedules the condition that basement car parks are to be a maximum of 75% of the building envelope. This of course means less units and smaller basement car parks in order to meet the parking requirements – a total ‘no-no’ in Glen Eira! In our view, this council is averse to implementing any strategy, policy, schedule, amendment, which would handicap developers in any meaningful way.

Hitting the water table is a major worry and it can only get worse with much of Carnegie undergoing some very intensive development. The post on the Belsize Avenue planning conference that I’ve gone back to look at mentioned that all the council officer and developer were worried about was whether or not there was an SBO Melbourne Water overlay. What would happen to the water table and its effect on neighbouring properties wasn’t on the agenda at all. If this is council’s attitude then there is going to be some mighty legal cases down the track on negligence.You don’t hand out permits willy-nilly before you know what the risks are. Once the risks are ascertained and authenticated then the process of determining conditions and perhaps a permit should start. Council doesn’t do things this way perhaps because they don’t like the idea of adding on extra costs to the developer. It’s better that something gets built and then they pray like hell that no sink holes or water damage results.

The post you are referring to also queried the accuracy of some developers plans. Council basically accepts what is put in front of them. Whether or not they have the expertise to assess any of these plans properly is a moot point. What should not be a moot point is a council which does all it possibly can to protect residents against any form of damage. This is not happening.

From all these posts on what other councils are doing or at the very least trying to do it is apparent to me that Glen Eira Council will not do anything that it is not forced to do by law or attempt anything that might cost some money no matter how beneficial this might be in the long run. I support fully the notion that this is a “do nothing” council out to encourage as much development as it possibly can with no concern for what the results might be. The cumulative effect of excavation has to be considered. Hats off to Kingston on showing some initiative.

There are dead and dyeing trees all over Glen Eira, with no strategy or seemingly a care or understanding of what this may entail for residents as
climate change comes on. Watertables and housing densities and permeability are important, as will be the energy used to cool these new dwellings in what looks like increasingly longer and hotter
summers.

Do you ever get the feeling your “being tied to the mast on a ship of fools”